I am the director of a small non profit organization. By small, I mean that I am the sole professional staff. (a couple of part time folks to do copying types of things are here, too). So, I do all client services, all business operations, all smoozing with the powers that be, all looking for funds. Which means. Proposals. Proposals are documents where by one entity (funding source) demands a written ‘proposal’ (hence the name) of services to offer and they decide if they want to fund it or not. Some proposals are pretty straightforward and short (I have to do a couple of those a year, not too bad, about 5 pages, mostly the same stuff year to year).
But, this one other. The mother of all bad tasks. This annual pain in the ass comes in 3 sections. One must be double spaced, not more than 15 pages, original plus 4 copies, another section one copy, double spaced, don’t care how many pages, last section, double spaced, don’t care how many pages, original plus 4 copies. Interspersed in this whole document are 4 signature pages. frankly, I think at random. Major changes have gone on within the funding source, so this document, while it has some remnants of prior years product is, nonetheless new and different.
We have to download it from the web. It’s formatted by the Marquis de Sade (who has been mighty cranky since his death). For some unknowable reason, I can only work on it from one computer. It won’t retrieve from the other one. The one that it will work from has the wordperfect program from hell, that makes decisions for you and really believes that it knows better. I have it burning in effigy in the back yard. It’s cousin, the printer from hell is also on this computer (do I have funds for new equipment? no)
Along with my expected annual pain and agony (odd formatting of the original document means difficulties when preparing same), this year was a banner year in pain and agony.
Time: Wednesday evening, 7 pm. t- minus 46.5 hours and counting til the proposal is due.
I’m working on it, have the budget part done (major headache and connected in multiple ways to 1/3 of the rest of the proposal). have 2/3 of the narrative done, including the all important Executive Summary page. I go to save the hummer to a disc. message appears: “disc full”. Ok, no problem, I’ll save it to the hard drive.
Message appears: “program has performed an illegal function. You will be tarred, feathered, your first born deported, your hair will look frumpy, and you’ll get a hangnail”, and before I can say or do anything, the word processing program shuts down.
I don’t panic yet. I open up the program again, go to the document that I’ve been working on. And there it is. Except A. it’s in a “read only” format, and B, it has NOTHING of what I’ve worked on. Nothing. it’s the blank document again.
Panic ensues. I call all available resources (ok, so that amounted to 3 people who said, in essence “you’re SOL”). no dice.
So, after pausing to reconsider for the seventy third time my career choice, I start again (this time, instead of working from the front of the document to the back, I start at the back and work forwards. I don’t know, it seems ‘right’. I note, with interest, that sobbing while typing adds a whole new dimension to ‘typos’.
A few hours pass. I get a lot done (it’s amazing how fast you can work when your life is flashing in front of your eyes). Time to go home. Son appears. We go home. Shortly after arriving home, he heads out the back door. Being a tall teen, and undergoing teenaged emotions, he hits the top of the door jam on his way out.
Of course, since we live in an old farm house, this isn’t recommended. I hear screaming, head out to the back porch, find him doubled over in pain, blood spurting from his hand, making a nice sized pool. I help him back into the house, dripping blood all the way. I quickly decide this is beyond what I should try and deal with at home, so off to the hospital.
No stitches, no bones broken, 'nuther script for antibiotics. I think to call SO to let him know what’s happening (wouldn’t do for him to come home to no car and blood trails through the house). We get home around 2:30 AM, I get to bed around 3, get up around 5:30. Yep, I sure feel rested.
I get to work, turn on the dreaded computer, bring up the document again, start working on it. Sigh, wish I could remember those award winning words I came up with yesterday. Something about ‘world class city?’ naaaa. Sigh. Pause for a moment, and look at the bottom of the screen. What’s this? There seem to be two documents open. the other document - the one I thought was lost. The Computer Gods have smiled on me. I haven’t a clue where it’s been, but like a long lost and beloved pet, I ask no questions, merely put out a nice bowl of milk and sit back to admire it.
So, instead of having to pull another all nighter to complete that sucker, I finished by 4 pm (at a leisurely pace), a full 24 hours before it’s due.
Of course, this did include a whole new assortment of coding oddities in the original source document (my personal favorite was the one where 10 pages were turned sideways and I couldn’t get it to stop).
But it’s done.
Til next time.
